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Dream
Growing up, my vision of missionaries, were people who lived in grass huts amongst foreign people. I thought all missionaries washed their clothes in rivers and cooked over an open fire. When I heard missionaries speak in my home church I contemplated climbing in their suitcases, so I could go to the ends of the earth with them.
As a child I never thought that I could be a missionary. I never let myself put my dreams overseas. I was convinced I would be one to send people. I didn’t know if my heart really matched my dreams.
When I traveled out of the country to Guatemala for the first time, I was heartbroken for the people. I wanted to somehow help them build better houses than those built out of cardboard. I knew coming back on the airplane that I would not travel to another foreign country unless I was bettering their country somehow.
My dream to go on a mission’s trip came true the spring of my sophomore year. I was able to travel to Chihuahua City, Chihuahua to work with an orphanage. During my short time there I fell in love with different culture. I felt God’s pull strongly on my heart. I felt he was calling me to a ministry in a different culture. This call was felt even stronger the next year when I returned to Chihuahua, only to be confirmed in Ecuador later that summer.
I knew after I returned from Ecuador that I would be spending my life in a foreign culture. I was pretty positive that I would return to a Hispanic country. But God had bigger plans, which he revealed to me over the next year. During my last fall at home, before enrolling at Ozark Christian College in January 2005 I received a call from an organization asking me to go to Africa with them the upcoming summer.
That summer I went to South Africa and Zimbabwe knowing that God had something in store for me. I didn’t expect to have my worldview rocked, but God is more powerful than I could imagine at the time. By the time I returned from Africa I wasn’t sure where I was headed, but I knew God had bigger plans than me returning to South America.
At this point I was looking for a place to intern for the spring semester of 2007. I was contemplating returning to the missionaries in South Africa and serving under them, but during my time of preparation, I felt the door close. With that door closed, I felt one open to get onboard with Pioneer Bible Translators and travel to Papua New Guinea to work with a Literacy program enabling villagers to read the Word of God for the first time ever.
I know this is the right opportunity, because God is fulfilling my dreams to go to that village where people live in grass huts and wash their clothes in rivers. This life is what I have dreamed of and I feel like God has equipped me to live. As I embark on this dream of mine, I go with vulnerability, listening to God for his direction for my future.